Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Describing Your Personal Qualities
Describing Your Personal Qualities
Here are some personal qualities which are highly valued by employers. These are the nouns, but adding an adjective can make them
stronger (e.g. totally committed).
Take a look at the examples below, then practice writing nouns and adjectives in a grammatically correct sentence.
Honesty “I am extremely/scrupulously/very honest.”
“I demonstrated complete honesty in my management of funds for the University Chess Club.”
Integrity “I am a person of high/absolute/complete personal integrity.” (There is no adjective for integrity)
Adverbs to express strength of your personal qualities can be found in a collocations dictionary.
E.g. prowritingaid.com/Free-Online-Collocations-Dictionary.aspx
Put: “I put tables out for the customers” placed, arranged, organised, filed, aligned, positioned
Got: “I got first class honours” received, obtained, was awarded, procured, acquired
NB: Use a good dictionary, with examples, to check the exact meaning of the word you have chosen and if it is appropriate in this
situation.
English language tips: CV and Cover letters developed by the University of Melbourne, July 2017. This document is designed for an Australian context and is
intended as a guide only.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TIPS:
CV AND COVER LETTER
Choose the correct verb tense
Tense What for? Example
Simple past Events, completed activities, specific dates “I completed my Bachelor of Arts in 2013.”
Present perfect Skills acquired when exact time is not relevant “I have been trained in Halftix event booking software.”
For unfinished activities “I have worked for IBM since 2014 / for two years.”
Future Use ‘will’ not ‘going to’ (formality) “I will complete my Bachelor of Arts in November this year.”
Make sure you know the exact meaning of the verb you choose by looking it up in the dictionary to establish who is doing what.
Getting tense right in passive verbs can be difficult. Hint: put the sentence in the active form, then take the verb tense and put it on
the verb “to be”. Below are some examples of the correct usage of passive verbs in different tenses:
I learned software design = They trained me in software design I was trained in software design
They will train me I will be trained/They have trained me I have been trained/They are training me I am being trained
Understate detail: put the most useful information in the main sentence
X ✓
I was placed at XXX for three months and during that time I organised… During my three months at XXX, I organised...
I worked at the NAB where I gained experience in modelling of… While at the NAB, I gained experience in…
For more information and to book an appointment, visit careersonline.unimelb.edu.au
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For further English language Assistance, go to services.unimelb.edu.au/academicskills
English language tips: CV and Cover letters developed by the University of Melbourne, July 2017. This document is designed for an Australian context and is intended as a guide only.